CHAPTER XIX

PERSONALITY

PERSONALITY is elusive and as defiant of definition as the expression on the face of the Sphinx. Delineation, when attempted, too often through adulation or disparagement, fashions but a caricature. For face and form the heliograph is trustworthy and impartial to beauty or ugliness; but the photographer who can develop the one and diminish the other gratifies his patrons and enjoys popular favour.

But no artist can modulate the song of the nightingale or bourgeon the feathers of a partridge into the plumage of a bird of paradise. These creatures are differentiated and self-revealing only through appearance, habit and temper, carriage and conduct; and, in the same manner, personality, behind the screen, gives but cryptic exhibition to selfexpression. We observe and make note of face and form, thought and mode of expression, habitual method of life and action, characteristics, typical and peculiar; and, assembling such data into some sort of synthesis, call it personality.

But the flames that flash and fade in the smoke tell us nothing of the heat that produces them. So beyond all outward manifestation and observed phenomena personality remains unrevealable. Yet on such evidence, presumptive and secondary, our judgment is based. By like process we may get a glimpse, at least, of Dr. Chapman's personality -the hidden man encased in its outward form.

He was by nature reserved; clothed with an unexpected dignity that, if it puzzled you, left him impenetrable. Such aloofness led you to think of him as detached and distant, if not inaccessible and unapproachable. But within the barrier of self-repression he was gracious and genial, courteous and considerate. Despite his native diffidence there was always about him a conflicting air of self-reliance; this suggesting strength, the other weakness.

He was above the average height. His frame was strong and compact, and he possessed an extraordinary power to recuperate from depression or overwork. With an enormous capacity for sustained labour, his physique seemed equal to any burden. Heart and intellect worked together. The flow of his life had the velocity and vehemence of the mountain torrent. Beginning in the heights, as the outlet of a reservoir of an immense native force, it swept on unceasingly save when checked by physical exhaustion which reacted like the stone basin ledge that gathers the water into greater volume only to hurl it onward with increased momentum.

And yet this restless energy, always crowding for expression, was neither boisterous nor spasmodic; it was steady, controlled, resistless-like the surge of the full tide. Some of the heaviest of his responsibilities were assumed while under the embarrassment of grave physical disability of later years, but in despite his will power seemed to create new reserves to feed the flame and keep up steam for overtime and long hauls.

In the prime of vigour and during his long and exacting revival campaigns his force never faltered and his passion never waned. Back of all action there was a sustaining spirit, a bounding impulse, a burning conviction, a super

human zeal that carried him to the very heart of the conflict and kept him there until the slaves for whom he fought were free men in Christ.

He "gave the impression"-as one that knew him for a quarter of a century has said-"that he was aware of the destiny-telling nature of his work and of the necessity that he should employ all human and divine powers in the prosecution of his tasks. He knew that he was the agent of the Holy Spirit, and that he dare not violate the message of that Spirit nor employ any methods discordant with the Spirit. He knew that the soul of man was to be reverenced as related to God, and that in dealing with it all skill and delicacy needed to be employed. Hence Dr. Chapman, true as steel to the Gospel and to man's welfare, never violated good taste, never was unrefined, never dissociated the Gospel from that which is choice and dignified in human culture."*

It was no mere tribute to conventionality, but rather a consciousness of moral obligation, that kept him from the violation of good form in manner and message. There were times when he would pass from something worthy to something laughable, but never in the pulpit nor on the platform. Under his passionate appeal decisions were to determine human destiny. With such solemn issue there could be no trifling.

In constantly keeping to the higher levels, both in manner and expression, we have-as Dr. Hill says:

An explanation of his power in the pulpit making him the world's great evangelist. Not in clear thinking-but he was always lucid; not in accuracy and felicity of expression-and in this he never failed; not in faultless delivery-yet his manner was irresistible, was the

*Rev. Edward Yates Hill, D. D., in a memorial address delivered in Philadelphia, January 12, 1919.

secret of his power: it was rather in that quality found in supremest measure in Christ-surpassingly spiritual and moral persuasiveness. Even when making no appeal, he was appealing. He might be severe yet his kindness gripped the heart. He might be terribly direct yet his sympathy failed antagonism. His sword was bathed in heaven.

In public service his presence was commanding. His gravity and dignity of manner gave authority to every spoken word. His thought, never flat nor stale, but imaginative and epigrammatic, was expressed in direct and simple speech that appealed less to culture than to the primitive emotions. His illustrations were windows through which you looked out upon the living realities. There were no doubts, no negations, no shadows, no clouds floating through purple mists into nebulous nothing.

His voice, rich, deep, and musical, arrested and held the attention like the softened sound of martial music. His electric sentences, brilliant at times, were like flashes of lightning. They leaped from his mind molten. The flame seemed to be hurled by the outstretched forefinger. Such was the impression made upon you when he was speaking. Afterward, when you read these same sentences, expressed in cold type by the newspapers, they seemed sterile and commonplace, which lays emphasis upon the fact-so often ignored-that manner is of importance no less than matter.

In theology Dr. Chapman was a conservative. He believed in the ancient doctrines, not because they were ancient, but on evidence of experience that precluded reasonable doubt.

The probationary ages before Christ had reduced to demonstration the moral unity of mankind. The world by its own evidence had proved itself under condemnation.

Man was lost beyond self-recovery. There was no hope save in God. The plan of redemption, involving the new birth, however incomprehensible to the inquiring Nicodemus, was easily apprehended by the dying sinner. Such facts Dr. Chapman accepted as fundamental. He knew the source and course of evil, administered the remedy, and found it to be sovereign and sure. His conclusion, based on the logic of facts, was crucial and decisive. Hence his religion was not so much of theology and scholarship as it was of service and sacrifice.

He repudiated uncompromisingly the spurious but popular Gospel that prescribes material remedies for social ills, and was enough of an Aristotelian philosopher to believe "that social wrong is only the symbol of spiritual wrong, and that spiritual remedies will alone heal what is ultimately a spiritual malady."

He neither sought nor was credited with great erudition. To the one Gospel, as revealed in the New Testament, he confined himself. He was regarded by some as old fashioned and out of date, but none questioned his achievements.

Two ministers in Boston were leaving Tremont Temple after Dr. Chapman had preached.

"The same old thing," said one with a sneer.

"Yes," replied the other, "with the same old results." They were of different opinion, but in their point of view they were poles apart.

His brilliant success in fishing for men evoked the wonder -if not the envy of those lamenting that they "have toiled all night, and have taken nothing."

Dr. Chapman fished on while his variously minded spectators counted and sorted and depreciated the haul his nets